Step by step: smoking room

In my step-by-step tour, that so far has included the reception room, music room, drawing room and dining room and master bedroom,  I have come to the gentlemen's smoking room, which is on the second floor, to the right. The smoking room, that I have also frequently referred to as study has a long history. It started in my very first house in the bookshelf. There is very little left from that study, except the concept and the tile stove. But I started by making a chest of drawers and a writing desk from jenga blocks. Then I made a book case. It survived until quite recently. I added many interesting objects in the study. This is a picture from maybe a month after I began my hobby:

 

At this stage, I used Christmas lights.

When we moved, and when I re-created my house in a cabinet, I didn't put up any walls between the drawing room and the study so it was just one large room. 

But you recognise the tile stove, the book case at the back, the desk in front of it, and the chest of drawers is by the left wall, obscured by the clothes hanger.

I added, removed and replaced some objects, but the room remained the same until I started Womble Hall. Then I knew that the drawing room and the study would be separated, and although it made sense to have the study next to the dining room, it didn't work, so from the dining room the gentlemen have to go into the corridor and up the (non-existing) stairs to the second floor.

Like dining room, this room has a rear corridor and a pretty valve opening. I didn't make a chimney breast for this room because I was going to use the tile stove. It may be a wrong feature in a Victorian house, but I wouldn't part with this stove. I knew more or less how I wanted to decorate the room, so I tested it early, with low-resolution printed wallpaper. 

The partition is simply inserted, the floor is paper, the door leaned to, and so on. I had by that time made the Chippendale desk and cabinet, but the other desk is the same, and in the corridor you can see the old book case.

Before I started assembling and gluing the shell, I painted the back wall of the rear corridor and hung wallpaper on side walls and partition. It needed some clever calculation because I had to finish the corridor before I could put in the partition. This is also when I added a light in the corridor.



But this is also where I made an epic mistake and had to tear everything down and re-build it. Then I made a proper floor to replace the adhesive shelf lining. In this blog post from late April 2015 I say that the room is finished. But of course is wasn't. Nothing is ever finished. Less than a month later I replaced the old faithful book case. Then I added a rocking chair in the rear corridor. Then I made another Chippendale desk, and the old one was reluctantly removed. By the way, the coffee table in front of the sofa is a genuine Carin Backlund. And there is real whisky in the bottle!

Then I started making Adam ceilings, and the smoking room was among the first.



I added curtains. I changed the chandelier. I added some more objects.

Here is what it looks like now:

Maybe looking at the pictures only, you might say that this room has changed least of all. But if you read the blog posts you will see how much work happened between each stage.